'Trust'

Regaining and maintaining public confidence in the professions

The theme for the 2015 Disciplininary Conference was 'Trust'.

After a number of high profile issues and a general loss of confidence by the public in the professions and professionals we will be examining how the professions can regain and maintain the trust that was once held.

The keynote address in 2015 was given by Supreme Court Judge, Lord Toulson.

The Programme included:

Topic	Speaker
Keynote	The Rt Hon Lord Toulson Supreme Court
That was the year … a Legal update	Tony Child Browne Jacobson
Trust	Professor Rosalind Searle Coventry University
Trust – Did We Ever Have It?	Samantha Peters General Optical Council John Ellison Bar Standards Board Robert Bourns The Law Society Gareth Rees QC Financial Reporting Council
Privilege, Confidentiality & Data Protection	Dan Tench Olswang
If it isn’t recorded it didn’t happen – proving reliability	Luisa Gibbons Eversheds

Chairman's Introduction

Trust is a word that we use every day but what does it mean? Does it have a single meaning and how do we know the sense in which it is being used? In the end we have to rely on context and trust we have it right!

Without doubt trust is at the heart of the relationships between the professions and those they serve. The practitioners in law, medicine, finance and the many others alongside the Institutes to which they belong require the nebulous trust; but how do we create it, how can we nourish it and maintain it? These and many other questions will be discussed by our distinguished speakers.

Meanwhile we daily read of ‘incidents’ which damage if not destroy trust. We used to use the rhetorical question ‘would you buy a second hand car from this person?’. Ultimately it is probably not a bad rule of thumb. In recent months we have had the fare dodger banned for life from working in the Regulated Financial World whilst we have had the court remove a blanket suspension and substitute one relating to the specific area of failing. The logic being that the breach did not affect the general ability to practice. But with the new ‘Duty of Candour’ will every potential patient have to be informed and if so for how long?

All these and many other questions are vitally important if the professions as we know them are to survive this century. However at the end of the day I suspect we will all know that Trust is vitally important but wonder what steps we can take to create it.

CPD - 5 Hours

• Law Society of England & Wales CPD

• Bar Council CPD 

Date	13th February 2015